?Pornography’ at its root it nothing but two people having sex, which also happens to be very act that gave all humans their very existence. Recorded. On film. To say that there is anything wrong with this is to damn the very essence of human life. Do we damn the birth? Do we damn the childhood? So why would we damn the act of conception? Because some thousand year old myths used to divide us over the have ages have told us to? To damn porn, the natural essence of porn, is to damn humankind. For being too dirty and disgusting to know how to get to earth any other way than without the use of a sticky substance. Or, Eris forbid, nudity. The promulgation of pictures of people having sex can be looked at as a new honesty mankind is gaining with itself. This is how I got here. This feels good. I like looking at other people feel good. Etc. In America, the photographic representation of porn and its recent history are tied in with a modern resistance to the religious puritanism this country was founded on. Porn = anti-puritan. If Wolf and Dworkin are so alarmed at the dangers of the anti-puritan, are they also ringing alarm bells at the dangers of the puritan?

Two artists from Moscow are obsessed with an idea that a frog should fly too, so they make different photos of the frog in a ‘flight’, giving a name for each of them.

They think that ‘The jump of frog symbolizes thirst of flying. As genetic magic dream, about that far time, when frogs were the ANGELS’. Frankly this is the first time I hear about the link between frogs and angels…

Last week, after months of investigation, police arrested three teens, two 15 and one 16, and seized stolen jewelry, burglary tools, a map of the city and several black ninja suits with hoods and climbing spikes.

[...]

Lewis said one of the three indicated they had been active for a year and a half, and the pranks escalated from flights across rooftops and petty vandalism.

Lewis said the teenagers used a stolen credit card to buy, online, costumes and equipment such as hand-climbing spikes, metal throwing stars and utility belts.

Wow, this is a shocker. At around 3 am Tuesday morning at Burning Man 2007, during a rare lunar eclipse, the Burning Man sculpture was set on fire prematurely (it is normally burned on Saturday). The Black Rock City Emergency Services Department was able to put out the fire in time and salvage the sculpture (it had not yet been loaded with fuel or explosives). It is still scheduled for its normal burn on Saturday and they will be working throughout the week to repair any burn damage and re-install the neon.

Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says.

Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past.

That’s the cover of my 2nd book – Through the Rabbit Hole: A Beginner’s Guide to Playing Alternate Reality Games – used in conjunction with an article theorizing about a possible connection between ARGs and the sudden, mysterious deaths of two young and apparently quite talented artists, Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake.

I guess if I were only interested in selling books I’d be happy, as the prominent placement of the cover on this Dreamsend blog and the subsequent interest and coverage it has generated has resulted in a surge of sales in both this and my first book. But under these conditions it just doesn’t feel right. I’d rather not have the sales created by this blogger’s insensitive and often just plain stupid speculation about the deaths of these two people.

Okay, this is a post for all the Canadians out there. Americans have their own problems.

Apparently the Calgary Sun is okay with flagrantly propagating un-researched Christian gobbledygook. Licia Corbella (email: [email protected]) has this to say about how much the world apparently just adores us. Please, my Canadian friends, take the time to write her with some corrections. And then write a Letter to the Editor. Please. I am.

Luckily, however, our magnificent Parliament buildings are declared National Heritage buildings and can be restored, but not altered. Hallelujah!

Parliament was originally built at a time when the very ideological foundation to our entire way of life in Canada was established, reflecting beautifully the very bedrock of what makes Canada such a great country for its citizens and such a beacon to so many others from far away lands.

Before we visited Ottawa we spent some time in Quebec where a debate had been started by “some nitwit” (OK, it was then Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair) who pushed to have the cross hanging over the Speaker’s throne in Quebec’s National Assembly since 1936, removed so it wouldn’t “upset” minorities. Like Boisclair’s political career, that idea thankfully went nowhere.

Earlier this month, Ed Feuer, a copy editor with the Winnipeg Sun, wrote a Point of View editorial calling on the French version of O Canada to be changed because it refers to the Christian cross.

“It is curious because we want to see ourselves as a welcoming country for new immigrants, many of whom now come from non-Christian majority countries. Doesn’t “Il sait porter la croix” indicate that anyone who isn’t a Christian is marginalized in this supposedly multicultural country?” he wrote.

MULTICULTURAL

Supposedly multicultural? We ARE multicultural. We don’t just WANT to see ourselves as welcoming, we ARE welcoming. We’re not perfect, to be sure, but we’re likely the best in the world. So, why is that the case?

Back in July 2002, Pope John Paul II made mention of the French version of O Canada in his first speech upon arriving in Toronto for World Youth Day. This is what the then 82-year-old pontiff said:

The full version of the French anthem is translated as such: “O Canada! Land of our forefathers/ Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers./ As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,/ So also is it ready to carry the cross./Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant exploits.

THY VALOUR STEEPED IN FAITH

Will protect our homes and our rights….”

So what does it all mean? Pope John Paul II interpreted it this way.

“Canadians are heirs to an extraordinarily rich humanism, enriched even more by the blend of many different cultural elements,” said the pontiff in his shaky voice.

AT THE CORE

“But the core of your heritage is the spiritual and transcendent vision of life based on Christian revelation which gave vital impetus to your development as a free, democratic and caring society, recognized throughout the world as a champion of human rights and human dignity.”

Exactly.

Canada was founded as a free and democratic country, not because it was blessed with large stands of trees, fossil fuels and clear running water — after all, so was much of Africa. It is the envy of the world not because of our weather (heaven forbid!).

Canada is a place that millions — if not billions — of people in the world often risk everything to move to because it is free, and it is free because of its foundation and — like it or not — that foundation is the Judeo-Christian ethic.

Look around the world. Make a list of all the countries people want to immigrate to. What is the one common denominator of those countries? It is not culture, language, climate, or riches. There is only one. It is Christianity.

The former Pope and the francophone anthem is right.

This country’s valour is steeped in faith — the Christian faith. It protects our homes and our rights.

If we continue to chip away at this foundation by denying our history and heritage then we risk losing our freedoms.